In June 2013 the US supreme court confirmed a federal appeals court ruling about Donald Rumsfeld by claiming that be cannot be held liable for any illegal actions of his subordinates. He was being sued for personally authorising "enhanced interrogation" techniques.[1][2]

Immunity for manufacturers of generic drugs

In a 5-4 vote on July 7, 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that Karen Bartlett had no right to sue Mutual Pharma, after a drug they made, the generic anti-inflammatory drug Sulindac, caused her to develop toxic epidermal necrolysis as a side effect. A lower court awarded her $21 million in compensation, stating that “Because it is impossible for Mutual and other similarly situated manufacturers to comply with both state and federal law, New Hampshire's warning-based design-defect cause of action is pre-empted with respect to FDA-approved drugs sold in interstate commerce." Whiteout Press summarised the implications of this ruling as follows "In other words, if the FDA says something is safe, it doesn’t matter if that decision is wrong or the result of lies, fraud or deception on the part of the world’s pharmaceutical companies. And there’s no way to sue the FDA for being wrong and costing millions of unsuspecting Americans their lives."[3]